White paper: Validation of Medical Image Processing in Image-guided Therapy

Clinical use of image-guided therapy (IGT) systems has grown, creating the need for a common and rigorous validation methodology, as reported in recent workshops and conferences. [1,2,3,4] One key characteristic of IGT systems is that they employ medical image processing methods (e.g. segmentation, registration, visualization, calibration). As a result of this intrinsic structure, validation of IGT systems should include both individual validation of these components, validation of the overall system and a study of how uncertainties propagate through the entire image guided therapy process. Significant progress has been made on IGT system validation recently. Today almost all peerreviewed publications reporting on the development of new medical image processing methods include a validation section, but this was not always true in the past.